life, as we see it

On Thursday, I will step on a plane and start the adventure of the next year of my life. As I have been preparing to go, I have been so amazed to see people come around me and be excited about what God is doing in Bosnia. I have been blessed to see them truly have concern for the things that are taking place there and I have been blessed by their self-sacrifice in praying for Christie, myself, and the names heard and faces they have seen in the photographs over the past few years. I am at a place now where people are no longer asking me what I am doing now that I am out of school, but they are asking am I ready for what is coming next. This is a question that honestly for some nights haunted me, “Am I ready?” Ready. After thinking about this word for countless minutes I have come to realize that that is a point I do not know if I will ever reach. To me, this word means that I have all my ducks in a row and have accomplished everything that I had once dreamed of checking off my list before I go. Now I realize that it is not the number of books I have read and the amount of time spent studying about the things that will come that will make me prepared, it is what I do with them. I could have accomplished all the things on my list, I could have prepared in every way, but unless I actively used those things in the furthering of the relationship with God and His kingdom, they are all worth nothing.


I was reading some the other day in the book of Luke chapter 18 and the first verse caught my attention. It says, “…at all times they were to pray and not lose heart.” When reading this, my mind flooded with thoughts. The reason I had set some of the goals I wanted to accomplish before I leave for the year was because I was afraid of what the result would be if I did not accomplish them. I was afraid that I would not be able to carry out the mission that God has set before me. What I realized is that when I get over there, God is in control. If things do not seem to be going the way that I would have planned them, He’s got it; I should not lose heart. If I am having problems in learning the language, I need to stop and pray and ask God to allow me to see the words in a way that will help me to remember them. This pray without ceasing concept is a thing that I have known for years, but it wasn’t until the other day that I realized the connection between prayer and hope. I ask things in prayer believing that God can provide and the result is that through prayer and that willingness to hope in God I am not able to lose heart. Because I am constantly having to believe in my prayers I am constantly having to have hope in the Promise. There is always hope even if I can’t see it.


So, I am walking into this year with hope. I am believing that God is going to accomplish what He is sending us to accomplish. I am believing that I am capable through Him to do those things. I choose to believe and never give up on the hope of God, because it is hope that those people need and it is hope that I need, as well, to survive and live to the fullest.


- Heather